


Klaus’ Tattoos

by Thunderfire69



Series: The Umbrella Academy Of Gays [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ghosts, Hurt No Comfort, I tried for symbolism, Implied/Reference Drug Use, Klaus is a very fucked up kid, M/M, Sobriety, Talking to the dead, Tattoos, idk what this is honestly, implied/reference child abuse, klaus-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:51:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderfire69/pseuds/Thunderfire69
Summary: Klaus has exactly seven tattoos, and each means a different thing to him.





	Klaus’ Tattoos

Klaus has exactly seven tattoos, but most people are only aware of five of them. The first he ever got was the one they were all forced to get, the Umbrella Academy symbol that was painted onto their skin with permanent ink that would never come off, and a memory of intense, terrible pain when it was first done. 

 

For a long time, this was Klaus’ only tattoo. And for a long time, Klaus didn’t  _ want  _ another tattoo; the memory of the pain alone was fresh in his mind, and he didn’t want to relive that. 

 

Then he turned eighteen, the same day as all his siblings (save Five and Ben, since Five had been missing for years now and Ben was dead), and he got drunk off his ass, and was probably high, too. Whatever the case, Klaus woke the next morning with only the faintest memory of getting the “Hello” and “Goodbye” tattoos on his palms; he vaguely remembered thinking it humorous, since he was often waving goodbye to the living and hello to their ghost. He also remembered how mad Reginald Hargreeves, his father, had been upon seeing them, and how severely punished he had been for it.

 

It was only a week later that Klaus moved out, and a few weeks later he got word that the others had done the same.

 

Klaus also remembers Ben following him around for the rest of the week, trying to tell him how stupid he’d been. Klaus soon took to holding up his goodbye hand at Ben during these rants, accompanied by the middle finger on his hello hand. Needless to say, Ben eventually gave up.

 

It wasn’t long before Klaus got his fourth tattoo; he got a small gravestone tattooed on his lower back, where it would be covered by whatever clothing he wore, with “Ben Hargreeves” on it in small, small writing. Above it were the words “Rest in Beace”. Ben doubled over with laughter the first time he saw it and couldn’t move for a full twenty minutes due to how hysterical he was over it. Klaus counted that as a win.

 

Klaus’ fifth and sixth tattoos were purely self-indulgent; a large skull on his right shoulder, a knight’s crest on his left. They held meaning to no one but Klaus, the skull representing the powers he so hated, the knight’s crest representing the father he so hated.

 

But his seventh and final tattoo was the one that meant the most to him. If he thought about, it was technically his first tattoo, but thinking about time travel made his head hurt, and it made him think of Dave, which made his heart hurt. 

 

It had been about a week before they’d gone to the front lines, a week before Dave had died. The two of them had gone to get tattoos together; kind of cheesy, but it meant the world to both of them. They couldn’t do anything too obvious, like matching tattoos or each other’s names.

 

Dave, ever the sap, got the date of the day they shared their first kiss tattooed across his collarbone. Klaus could see it was painful for him to get, but Dave had insisted he wanted the pain so he’d never forget where his tattoo was.

 

Klaus got his tattooed across his back; an image of dog tags, with the address of the place they first danced together down in the corner of one in tiny writing. When he returned back to his time, the first thing he did was go and get Dave’s name tattooed onto the dog tag, an addition to the tattoo, then got his own name tattooed onto the other. 

 

It was staring at this tattoo that finally made him decide to try and go sober. Anything to let him speak to Dave one final time. Besides, if the world was going to end, withdrawals couldn’t be the worst thing in the world, could they? And if the world was going to end, then he wanted to speak to Dave before then. To tell him he loved him, over and over until the world burnt down around him.

**Author's Note:**

> I just felt like trying to write some symbolism into tattoos that Klaus has, and ones I imagine he has.


End file.
